MarginaliaSearch VS Killed by Google

> I think a larger concern is how you'll address the Bus Factor going forward

I can't speak to how much energy it is to go from code to serving requests, but FWIW the code is AGPLv3 and seems to be updated regularly https://github.com/MarginaliaSearch/MarginaliaSearch/blob/v2...

Regarding the last sentence: The problem is that capitalism knows no limits. Sure, it would be nice to pay a monthly subscription for genuinely good and desirable content/search results...

But what if the CEO of the service provider needs another $5m bonus? What if the stock needs to go up so that the shareholder gamblers can get more dividend paid? What if all of a sudden the service gets bought out?

The truth is that what you are seeking is more likely to come from someone who is just passionate about it with not that much motivation based on profit. That doesn't mean that this entity or person can't be financially supported but it gets problematic when profit is the _main_ incentive.

For a good example of an interesting search engine built by a single guy, see Marginalia: https://search.marginalia.nu/

Have you heard of https://www.marginalia.nu/ in general, and especially the https://search.marginalia.nu/ from there?

There's a decent amount of people still keeping the fire burning for the "old web." It takes a little digging, but it's out there.

Some links for you:

* https://wiby.me/ — search engine that emphasizes simple/plain/hobbyist pages. Try the "surprise me" link a few times.

* https://neustadt.fr/essays/the-small-web/ — article, "Rediscovering the Small Web"

* https://search.marginalia.nu/ — author (hangs out on HN sometimes, too (marginalia_nu)

Actually, here's a link to a similar discussion on an old HN thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30783391

I built a recipe detector. You can, you know, train some sort of AI model to do this like with fasttext, or maybe do naive bayesian inference, but as it turns out, you can also:

https://github.com/MarginaliaSearch/MarginaliaSearch/blob/ma...

It works annoyingly well.

For some values of "nobody"; this westerner enjoys https://search.marginalia.nu (in addition to more common engines) and has high hopes for the new site browser:

Result ranking takes a lot of variables, and factors like excessive tracking and affiliate links is one of them in my search engine.

You can poke around in the result valuation code here: https://github.com/MarginaliaSearch/MarginaliaSearch/blob/ma...

#1 cause in the decline of Google maybe. https://search.marginalia.nu/ seems to manage though, so maybe Google just doesn't care.

Congratulations on shipping.

I see a lot of focus on startups, AI tools, productivity hacks, tech stacks, etc. What audience do you have in mind? I personally find that the most interesting sites on HN are outside of your scope here (examples: https://ciechanow.ski/, https://neal.fun/, https://search.marginalia.nu/).

I was already starting to feel a little cornered in the whole Google ecosystem and a bit limited with stuff like backups, vendor lock in, etc. (and you always have the obvious hanging over your head) and ultimately, I think I just find the mental model of a SQL database more intuitive compared to a NoSQL database. So I thought to myself; "the longer I leave it, the harder it'll be to make the switch".

https://killedbygoogle.com/

Their reputation is deserved. Google domains was killed only last year!

And this isn't even the first time I've been burned by Google's decisions. If you're familiar at all with the Google Graveyard, you'll know that Google has a long history of killing off products and services that people have come to rely on. This has happened to me a number of times, in both a personal and professional capacity, and frankly it's getting old.

Just because Google has a couple of decent services that you're willing to pay for doesn't detract from the fact that most of their products have a worse life expectancy than a victorian child in the 1800s. https://killedbygoogle.com

They ruined every single opportunity to be more than an advertising company since Orkut. With scrapped attempts, starts and lack of intention for most of the 2010s to even during the early half of the Pixel Era, they seemingly haven't learnt to stick to something and iterate on it well.

And the fact that over 50% of their revenues come from search and by extension, advertising.

The fact' that til this day, they still haven't evolved from the "throwing shit at the wall then at the fan" strat which explains how they have fumbled so much so quickly.

Yeah. The Google Graveyard really shows how far this can go.

https://killedbygoogle.com

The punchline is that in addition to hundreds of failed hobby projects, their stock is doing great. Monopoly power is a helluva drug.

To me Gemini is just sort of generic and uninteresting. There has to be hundreds or thousands of products and companies based on the name "Gemini" - "Bard" was at least interesting, different and distinct.

I've no idea about the quality of the product itself, I have never had a reason to use it. It's long past cliché now but I wouldn't get too attached to a Google product that is definitely costing a lot of money but which has no clear pathway to turning a profit. I think they will keep it ticking over until the hype train moves on from Chatbots/LLMs, and then it'll join the Google Graveyard @ https://killedbygoogle.com

We're not talking about reliability, we're talking about Google's penchant for killing established products that people use. https://killedbygoogle.com